Re: Hardware needed for 15,000,000 record DB?

[Mathieu Arnold <mat(at)mat(dot)cc>]

--On dimanche 21 avril 2002 19:25 -0400 pdg(at)stratos(dot)net wrote:

> Hello,  :-)
>
> Can someone help me spec out the hardware needed for a simple web-based
> database app?
>
> Basically, that application needs to lookup a single row by its primary
> key. This would be fairly straightforward, except that the table needs to
> contain up to 15 million records.  Each row will contain approximately 25
> variable length CHAR fields with perhaps a total of 3 to 4 kilobytes of
> data per row.
>
> Updates will be done nightly via some sort of a batch process.
>
> What kind of hardware would be needed for this sort of application? The
> queries are not complex, it's just a lot of data.
>
> Would a midrange Celeron processor with 256 MB RAM be sufficient? How
> would backups work for a database this large?
>
> Is PostgreSQL even the best database engine for this app? Perhaps MySQL?
> Or maybe a Microsoft solution?

well, I have a server with a database over 7GB, and :

backup=> select count(*) from file;
 count
----------
19430605
(1 row)

backup=> explain analyze select * from file where id_file = 29000000;
NOTICE:  QUERY PLAN:

Index Scan using file_pkey on file  (cost=0.00..3.18 rows=1 width=117) 
(actual time=0.60..0.61 rows=1 loops=1)
Total runtime: 0.77 msec

and it's an old poor :
hda: IBM-DTLA-307030, ATA DISK drive

ps: the select count(*) took a long time, but I believe that was because 
there was a batch running and feeding the db :)
--
Mathieu Arnold